Lviv student researches fate of Ukrainian forced laborers (01/27/02)

Lviv student researches fate of Ukrainian forced laborers

by Oksana Zakydalsky

TORONTO - The convention regarding the protection of the civilian population during war known as the Fourth Geneva Convention - includes the following: "It is forbidden to force the civilian population of the occupied power to perform forced labor for the occupying power. The deportation of persons from occupied territory to the territory of the occupier is forbidden." The convention was drawn up on August 12, 1949, partly as a response to the deportation and forced labor policy instituted by the Nazis in World War II.

The Nazi Auslandereinsatz (use of foreigners) between 1939 and 1945 represents the most sizable case of massive and forced use of foreign workers in history since the end of slavery in the 19th century. The official records for the late summer of 1944 list 7.6 million foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war on the territory of the German Reich who were brought there for employment by force. They represented about a quarter of all registered workers in the entire economy of the German Reich at the time, although studies have shown that they reached 40 to 50 percent of workers in the armaments industry. It is realistic to talk of about 9.5 million to 10 million foreign civilian workers and prisoners of war who were used in Germany in forced labor.

Of these, about 4 million were Soviet laborers, of which about 2.4 million to 2.8 million were Ukrainians who thus constituted the largest national group working in Germany. It is estimated that about 20 percent of the workers were underage (15 to 17 years old) and more than half of the Polish and Soviet civil workers were women, on average less than 20 years of age. "The most common type of forced laborer in Germany in 1943 was an 18-year-old female student from Kyiv," "Ulrich Herbert, Hitler's Foreign Workers," (Cambridge University Press, 1997).

Who were the Ukrainian forced workers? How did they get to Germany? What were the conditions under which they lived there? What happened to them after the war? These are the subjects of research for Tetiana Koltun-Lapan, a graduate student in history at Lviv National University. Ms. Koltun-Lapan was in Toronto from mid-September to the end of December 2001 as a John Kolasky (Memorial) Fellow - a scholarship administered by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. She worked in the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center under the guidance of Iroida Wynnyckyj.

Ms. Koltun-Lapan's area of study is oral history, and, before arriving in Canada, she completed interviews with 150 persons from Lviv Oblast who had been forced laborers in Germany during World War II. According to official sources, there are about 600,000 former forced laborers still living in Ukraine today. In Toronto, Ms. Koltun-Lapan continued her interviews with local former forced laborers, completing 35 audio interviews.

After the occupation of Poland in 1939, Polish prisoners of war were quickly put to work in Germany and, by May 1940, more than a million Polish workers had been brought into the Reich, mostly by force. At that point the forced labor policy did not affect western Ukrainians, who, because of the Nazi-Soviet division of Poland, were then under Soviet rule. The Nazi political leadership viewed the use of Poles in Germany as a violation of race principles and feared political dangers for the German people. Consequently, a large system of repressive measures was developed to deal with the deported Poles: they had to live in barrack camps, they received lower wages, they could not use public conveniences nor attend German church services, they had to work longer hours than Germans and were required to wear a "P" patch attached to their clothing. Contact with Germans outside of work was forbidden. But it was soon obvious that even the recruitment of Poles could not satisfy the labor needs of the German economy. Consequently, over one million French prisoners of war were brought into the Reich as workers and an intensive advertising campaign for workers was begun in the so-called friendly and occupied areas in Western and Northern Europe. Each of these groups received its own rules for treatment, wages and lodging, which were more favorable than those for the Poles. A multilayered system of national hierarchies developed, with workers from Northern and Western Europe ranked at the top and the Poles at the bottom.

In the fall of 1941, the military reverses in the Soviet Union meant that the German armaments industry had to adjust to a longer war and needed to increase its capacity. Only the use of workers from the Soviet Union could make up the labor shortages. Thus, a system of regulations was developed for Soviet civil workers, even more extreme than those for the Poles. Their food rations were smaller, and they received wages that were substantially lower than those of other foreign workers. They were required to wear a patch reading "OST" (East) on their clothing.

Decisions regarding the foreign workers were left to individual firms, so that the situation of the Soviet workers varied widely from plant to plant and from camp to camp. Many firms paid no wages at all to the Soviet civilian workers: they viewed them as civilian prisoners and treated them accordingly.

Although the need for cheap labor in Germany is a logical explanation for the forced deportations of workers from Ukraine and other occupied areas of the Soviet Union, Ms. Koltun-Lapan said that other explanations should also be considered: that this policy set out to destroy and weaken nations the Germans regarded as inferior races and that, by taking workers to Germany, the Nazis cleaned out the occupied lands of young people who, under appropriate circumstances, could have posed a threat to them.

It should be noted that Ukrainians fell into two categories of forced labor: those taken from western Ukraine, which in 1941 became part of the German Generalgouvernement (GG) of Poland and those taken from Reichskomissariat Ukraine (under the brutal tyranny of Erich Koch). The first group was treated like the Poles and required to wear the "P" patch on their clothing, while the second - the Ostarbeiters (workers from the East) - were required to wear the OST patch and were subject to even harsher treatment than the Poles. They had to live in camps that were fenced with barbed wire and under constant guard.

At first, German propaganda in Ukraine painted a "German paradise on earth" to entice people to go to Germany, but it soon became obvious that this was not creating the needed results and the German command instituted brutal methods in rounding up people. Ms. Koltun-Lapan said she has heard many stories of wild chases of people in cities and in villages - in streets, trains, bazaars, schools, monasteries, churches, fields, theaters and cinemas. People were pulled from their homes at night. Groups of people would be arrested and rounded up at special collection points, where they were formed into contingents for transportation in freight cars to Germany. The travel conditions were appalling - there were no sanitary measures and the food rations were so meager that the workers arrived in Germany already weak. Anyone who tried to flee was shot. Many people tried to avoid deportation through self-mutilation or flight.

In the villages of the GG, a local official would be given the responsibility of gathering a designated number of persons. If this number was not produced, the village council was held responsible. The people chosen would be rounded up by the Polish or Ukrainian police. Ms. Koltun-Lapan said the role of the Ukrainian police in rounding people up for deportation to Germany had been confirmed by several interviewees.

Arriving in Germany at special administrative points, the new workers would be assigned jobs. Some went to German farms, others to labor camps. According to Ms. Koltun-Lapan, 75 percent of Ukrainians from the GG worked in Germany as farm laborers and only a small percentage in labor camps, while 75 percent of Ukrainians from the Reichskommissariat worked in German industry.

Working and living conditions for laborers from the GG and Ostarbeiters who worked for farmers were much better than those of workers in labor camps. As well, workers from the GG had privileges in the labor camps that Ostarbeiters did not have: they could go outside the boundaries of the camp, to the movies, to church, to meet their friends. All such privileges were denied Ostarbeiters. Food on the farms was adequate while workers in the factories suffered not only from hard physical work but bad food, which weakened them and made them susceptible to sickness. There was no medical care and many died of communicable diseases.

The following is from an interview with a factory worker: "I was born in Dnipropetrovsk. My family survived the famine of 1932-1933. In 1942 I was taken from Pavlohrad to work in Germany. The conditions of transport and life in camp Rotenberg were extremely bad. In the winter we received a pail of coal for 24 hours, so that in the morning, my hair would often be frozen to the wall of the barrack. Work in the camp began at 6 a.m. after a so-called breakfast, which was made up of ersatz coffee and a piece of bread which one had to save from the previous evening's supper. After breakfast, the Ostarbeiters, of whom there were 16,000 in the camp, were taken to their place of work, which was three kilometers from the camp. Therefore, we had to walk six kilometers every day. These walks severely weakened us."

From an interview with Olha-Liuba Maksymliuk: "I was born in the village Druzheliubovka, in Zaporizhia. We were able to survive the 1932-1933 famine. I was taken to Germany in 1942 and found myself at a factory that made batteries. The work was not physically demanding, but required constant attention. The work was dangerous for one's health. Germans who worked in the factory had special masks. We received such masks only at the end of the war. Several girls who worked at the factory got lung disease. They were sent home and died soon after."

Ms. Koltun-Lapan summarized: the fate of forced laborers of the two categories was both different and the same. Their mutual distress stemmed from the fact that they were torn from their lives, their friends, their family and their loved ones. The young flower of the Ukrainian generation born in 1923-1927 found itself in an enemy country. The discriminating moment was the patch - P or OST - which the workers, denied their Ukrainian nationality, had to wear. (Some people say that by the end of the war there was a U [for Ukrainian] patch - but this has not yet been proven.) Although the Ukrainian Central Committee was allowed to send observers to the labor camps to monitor conditions and provide some aid such as Ukrainian publications or small food parcels, according to most witnesses this aid, was, under the wartime conditions, very limited.

It is difficult to judge the attitude of the German population in this situation, Ms. Koltun-Lapan said, as the government issued specific instructions on dealing with foreign workers. Government policy was negatively oriented against foreign workers and tried to ensure that the foreign workers did not come into contact with the local population. Although there were incidents where Germans tried to ameliorate the conditions of the foreigners, these were isolated, individual incidents and did not find support from the authorities. At the same time, by giving individual firms and factories a lot of leeway in their dealings with foreign workers, the authorities did nothing to prevent or punish abuse.

Allied bombing raids, especially at the end of the war, had catastrophic consequences for foreign workers. Because German industry was one of the important targets of Allied bombing, industrial establishments suffered the most hits and foreign workers were the most vulnerable. Some of those interviewed said that foreign workers were denied access to bunkers where the Germans hid during air raids.

When the war ended, the most important question for the forced laborers was to return home or to remain behind. There were three categories of answers given in the interviews: I wanted to return home at the end of the war; I was not sure whether to return home or remain behind; I knew I did not want to return home.

The repatriation process had three phases, starting with mass voluntary repatriation in the first months after the war from all occupation zones. The majority of persons who worked in Germany fell into this category - they just went home. Those who found themselves in the Soviet occupied zones all were repatriated and their wishes were not at issue. Those who found themselves in British, American and French occupied zones theoretically were given a choice - to go home or to remain. In fact, the Soviets insisted that all Soviet citizens be returned and at first both the British and the Americans cooperated with their Soviet allies by forcing repatriation.

But from December 1945, after many suicides and all kinds of petitions (including one from Ukrainians in the Canadian Armed Forces which caught the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt), the Allies began to question why so many Ukrainians did not want to go home, and the forced repatriations stopped. Repatriation was a threat mainly to Ostarbeiters, as Ukrainians from the GG had not been Soviet citizens before the war.

What happened to the repatriated Ukrainians who returned to Ukraine? Ms. Koltun-Lapan answered:

"I have not yet consulted archival documents nor do I have sufficient witness material to substantiate any figure; therefore, I cannot estimate the number of persons who, having worked as forced laborers, or Ostarbeiters, in Germany were, on their return, sent to the Gulag or to other camps. Of course, the Soviet government was suspicious of persons who, even for a short time, had slid out from under its control, and, had it not been for the great human losses that World War II brought, who knows what would have been the fate of the repatriated Ukrainians.

"After a process of 'filtration,' most of the returning workers were left in 'relative peace.' During my interviews, I did meet people who, even 10 years after the war, were called in to account for their time in Germany. I have also heard of children of repatriated workers having problems when they tried to get into university - but these have been isolated cases. However, those who did not pass the 'filtration' - both men and women - were sent to labor camps in Siberia and Kazakstan."

Those who returned home during the first phase of mass voluntary repatriation reunited with their families and adapted to the Soviet reality. Repatriated persons were to receive financial assistance and food, but this aid remained on paper only. Some of the repatriates found themselves in catastrophic circumstances - no family to return to, no living quarters, no documents, no work.

Ms. Koltun-Lapan met and heard of women who had returned in 1946 and underwent intensive questioning by the KGB. Although most were released, they remained under surveillance. Some men who returned were taken into the Red Army and demobilized in 1947. Others were put into labor battalions whose task was the reconstruction of Soviet industry - in the regions of the Urals, Donbas, Kryvyi Rih and others. The work, pay and living conditions were similar to what they had endured in the German labor camps. Ms. Koltun-Lapan commented on the similarity of the two totalitarian systems - human life had no value in either the German or the Soviet system.

Between 1945 and 1953 the Soviet press wrote extensively about the successes enjoyed by the repatriates who had come home. This was aimed to show that the Soviet system was opening up opportunities for them and to contrast the brutal circumstances of their existence in Germany with the paradise of the Soviet Union. Many repatriates were forced to write to their family and friends who had chosen to remain behind. Here is an example of such a letter, written by Evhen Lypnytskyi to Anatol Lawrov:

"Warm greetings to you and your wife. I want to let you know that I am alive, well and have returned home. Anatol, I am Evhen Lypnytskyi, who worked with you in the mine in Belgium. I am home, in the Motherland, living happily with my family. Anatol, I beg you, return as soon as possible to your Motherland. Don't listen to all the rumors that circulate abroad that when someone returns to the Motherland they take everything away from him and put him on trial. It's not true, it's a lie, it's rotten propaganda spread by those exploiters abroad. Don't listen to their lies. Believe me, your friend from work. I was also afraid and listened to those provocateurs and was deceived until I came to understand that I was working for bosses and tycoons. Now I am happy, having returned to the Motherland and living with my wife and family. I hope that all of you who are wandering around abroad looking for shelter and work with those capitalists will soon return to the Motherland. Enough of working for somebody else and doing what they tell you. My greetings to your wife and if you are worried, go to the embassy and they will explain everything. Good-bye, Your friend, Evhen Lypnytskyi." (Strusov, Ternopil Oblast).

Through her interviews Ms. Lapan has gathered valuable information on the Ukrainian forced laborers and Ostarbeiters which throws new light on both the German and Soviet reality of the time and adds an important page to the history of Ukraine during World War II.

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